NEW CHAIRMAN OF THE KENNEDY CENTER IMPOSED

by Leslie Kenna

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Mr. Trump posted on social media: “It is a Great Honor to be Chairman of The Kennedy Center, especially with this amazing Board of Trustees. We will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!” —The New York Times, February 12, 2025

Dismiss the bass.
Silence the wind.
Send the oboes home.
 
Fling the flutes.
Torch the triangle.
Sever strings on the harp.
 
Stop the metronome.
Punch through drums.
Shred all sheet music.
 
Fire the conductor.
Topple the chairs.
Slam the curtain down.
 

No more music!
Except for the Trumpet,
the solitary Trumpet,

metallic and flatulent

one off note repeats
incendiary words.

We are revolting.

We are so revolting.

Leslie Kenna is a writer and scientist living in Maryland. Credits include New York Times Tiny Love, NPR-affiliate station KUNC, TedEd, @NYPL, and Bacopa Literary Review.

A REQUIEM FOR OUR WORLD

by Janet Leahy

For more information about the Boccaccio Project, please click here.

How will our story be told, a world

in mourning for the millions who have died.

Who will write the score for the new

requiem, our sense of loss overwhelms,

day by day we feel the dread of what 

may come next.  How will a new symphony

hold the pain of pandemic, will the cello

anchor the gravitas with a call to prayer,

will strings of violins rage against

the virus, will the oboe conjure healing 

in the slow low notes of a minor key.  

Is a musician at her piano today, 

arranging chords to evoke

the pain of isolation, the fear of Covid.

Does she know her music will save us,

will redeem our lapses into despair.

I think of composers from the past… 

will a new Mozart, Verdi, Dvorak, arrange

dissonant chords to tell this story,

a Requiem Mass for Our World.

Janet Leahy is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. Her poems have recently been published in Halfway to the North Pole, the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar 2021, and Art in so Many Words.  She has published two collections of poetry.

A TRIOLET REFLECTING ON CAMPAIGN POLITICS WHILE ATTENDING THE SYMPHONY

by Jo Ann Steger Hoffman

                             I
Why is the oboe so hidden from view,
browbeaten by brass and the bossy bassoon?
Fluttered by flutes and that viola crew,
why is the oboe so hidden from view?
Do the others snatch solos to try to outdo
the pitch-perfect oboe that tones the first tune?
Why is the oboe so hidden from view,
browbeaten by brass and the bossy bassoon?

                             II
Trumpets blare answers that ring of the truth
that those who shout loudest get heard.
The others, well-practiced, are dry as vermouth,
while trumpets blast answers that seem like the truth.
Their noise is pretentious, it’s strident, uncouth.
They signify nothing.  Can they be cured?
Trumpets blare answers that bear out the truth
that those who shout loudest get heard.


Jo Ann Steger Hoffman is a writer, editor, teacher and former communications director whose publications include a children’s book and a variety of short fiction and poems in literary journals.  Her 2010 non-fiction book Angels Wear Black recounts the only technology executive kidnapping to occur in California’s Silicon Valley.  A native of Toledo, Ohio, she and her husband now live in Cary and Beaufort, North Carolina.